by JM Stewart
He pressed another kiss to her lips, then forced himself to straighten. “I’m in meetings all day, but I should be done by six. Meet me at the hotel?”
She nodded, and he winked at her, then turned and left the room, every bit as conflicted as when he’d shown up on her doorstep last night. He had a decision to make. He could either take a step forward, toward her, or put more effort into redrawing his boundaries. The question was, what did he want? Was he ready to set his heart on the line?
* * *
By the time his day ended and six o’clock rolled around, he wasn’t one step closer to making his decision. It had been a long day of contract negotiations. This merger should have been easy, but the two companies were still arguing, and his head throbbed.
He looked forward to Hannah, more than he should. His heart had a definite mind of its own and it wanted her. He had a sinking feeling he was already halfway to falling in love with her.
A knock sounded on the hotel room door and his heart skipped a beat like he was seventeen all over again. Which then made his gut knot. It couldn’t be good when he anticipated and feared seeing Hannah with equal measure. He’d open the door, take one look at her, and be inside her five minutes later for all the self-control he possessed with her. He craved her like he craved coffee in the morning, and there wasn’t anything he didn’t like about her. She was real and breathtakingly honest.
His heart still skipped a beat, though, desire already coursing through him as he strode to the door. His smile plastered itself across his face as he undid the locks and pulled the door open. “Hey, gorgeous.”
Cade froze. The woman on the other side of the threshold wasn’t Hannah. Rather, his sister, Christina, stood in the quiet hallway, hands folded in front of her, little blue purse tucked beneath her left arm. Her long dark hair hung loose down her back, and she wore a simple black pencil skirt and a white blouse. Neat and perfect as always. At the sight of him, she smiled. Green eyes so much like his glittered with amusement.
“Hey, yourself.” She didn’t wait for an invitation, as usual, but pushed past him into the suite. “You haven’t called me, Caden. Mom sent me to make sure you were still alive.”
His hope sank as he turned, watching her stride into the suite’s living room. He poked his head out the door, but the hallway stood empty and quiet. No Hannah. Disappointment surged through him, and with a resigned sigh, he closed the door and followed his sister.
Standing beside the coffee table, Chris arched an elegantly curved brow. “Expecting someone?”
He didn’t miss the amusement in her gaze. An M.I.T. graduate, his sister had an eye for detail. She didn’t miss much. So he smiled. He hadn’t seen her in a while. He and Chris didn’t keep secrets. They told each other everything and always had. He always knew she’d be on his side, no matter what. Despite that, Hannah ought to be here any minute, and he had no desire to explain their relationship to Chris. He didn’t think he had the words.
“Nobody. Only a dinner companion.” He moved to her side and wrapped her in a hug. He had to admit he was glad to see her. She was the only other woman alive who didn’t expect anything from him.
She pulled back, her eyes filling with mischief. The look meant one thing—she was about to go on a fishing expedition.
She patted his chest. “You haven’t had a date since you broke it off with Amelia. Spill it.”
“I love you, Chris, but you’re not getting details.” He kissed her forehead, then released her. “What brings you by?”
She stared at him for a moment, then moved to the couch and took a seat, crossing one long leg over the other. “You haven’t called me. We were supposed to have lunch when you got into town. Or did you forget?”
Recalling the exact conversation two weeks ago, guilt slid through him. Cade stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded absently. “Mmm. I’m sorry. I’ve been a bit distracted this week.”
Her eyes lit up like the sun. She giggled with glee, not unlike a child presented with a room full of new toys, and sat forward on the couch. “At least tell me her name.”
This time he couldn’t help but laugh. She was nosy, but she always did it with so much joy he could never hold it against her. His sister was among the few women who didn’t have ulterior motives. With her, what you saw was you got. She was honest and kindhearted, and she worried about him.
He shook his head. “You’re not getting details. Who I date is nobody’s business but mine.”
Chris’s face fell, hurt rising in her eyes. “Even me?”
Cade heaved a breath and took a seat beside her, wrapping an arm around her. She laid her head on his shoulder. “I love you to the moon and back. You’re a part of me. But this stuff? Mom gets wind of this, and I’ll never hear the end of it. I want something just for me, and she’s it.”
She tipped her head back in order to meet his gaze. “I’m glad you’re seeing someone, though. You need it. You can’t stop living.”
Feeling trapped by this particular conversation, Cade pushed off the couch and moved to the windows. He watched a couple of boats whir through the water below. “Don’t start. It’s only been seven months. It’s not like I’ve become a hermit.”
“But it’s not like you, Caden. You’ve had a girl on your arm for as long as I can remember.”
She had a point. He sighed. “Because Mom expected it of me. She introduces me to half the damn universe. She thinks it’s time I settled down and started producing heirs and Dad agrees with her.”
“That’s just her way of saying she wants grandbabies. She tells me the same thing.”
He shook off the gloom looming over him and looked back at her. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? Having to pretend all the time? Never knowing who you can trust and who you can’t?”
Chris let out a heavy sigh.
“Yes. I am. I got a kick out of it in college. It was a little harmless fun to play with the ones who thought I had no clue. Now I’m thirty-one, and it’s a lonely place to be.” She pushed off the couch, coming to stand beside him, and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Tell me one thing. This girl you won’t tell me about, is she one of them?”
Cade shook his head. “Not even close. Mom would never approve of her. She doesn’t have any money or family. She’s down to earth and simple. It’s what I like so much about her. She doesn’t expect anything from me. She takes me as I am.”
“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy, little brother.”
Cade resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Little brother. Chris had been lording that over him for most of their lives, that she was the older twin.
Letting the nickname slide, he turned his head, peering at her. “So do you.”
Chris flashed a gentle smile. “And I will be. I haven’t given up. At least not completely. Have you heard anything regarding the lawsuit with Amelia?”
He made a noncommittal sound and turned back to watching the water. Whenever he came to the city, he preferred to stay here. He loved the view. Something about the water and all the trees in the distance filled him with a sense of peace he always wished he could take home with him. Now Hannah gave him that feeling. Too bad he couldn’t take her home with him.
“No. She still hasn’t complied. We’re filing a motion to have her held in contempt of court.” He glanced down at his sister and arched a brow. “Is that all you came over for? To berate me for not dating?”
Chris let out a quiet laugh and pushed off his shoulder. “No. I had a reason, though I’m not sure you’ll like it now.”
A miserable groan escaped him. Chris had taken up their mother’s pastime. She seemed to have inherited the matchmaking gene. “What did you do?”
Chris flashed a sheepish grin. “The breast cancer charity auction is in a few days.”
Cade narrowed his gaze on her. “Uh-huh. And?”
“It’s another bachelor auction this year. Last year’s was such a success we decided to do it again, but we’re short two bachelo
rs. Two guys backed out at the last minute. Trevor Von Bosch had a family emergency, and Edward Lyle got engaged, of all things. I volunteered you and Baz.”
Baz being his best friend, Sebastian Blake. They’d gone to school together. Christina was the only one who still called him by his childhood nickname.
Chris didn’t have to say it. He knew what was coming and the repercussions filled his mind. His sister headed the local charity for breast cancer research. It was a charity their family believed in and donated generously to every year. Chris had cornered him last year as well, talking him into allowing her to put him on the auction block. The prize was, of course, a date with each bachelor.
Cade closed his eyes, exhausted and overwhelmed by the prospect before him. “Oh, tell me you didn’t. Tell me Mom didn’t send you.”
“No, this was mine. I thought it would do you some good.” She laid her hand on his shoulder, her fingers soft and warm. “You spend too much time alone. You and Baz still aren’t speaking, so you haven’t been spending time with him. You don’t have a girl.”
He couldn’t argue with her there. He couldn’t even be angry with her for not asking him first, either. Unlike their mother, Chris’s concern had less to do with marrying him off than filling a need she somehow saw lacking within him. Fraternal or not, he’d shared a womb with her, and she knew him better than almost anyone.
He sighed and opened his eyes. She stared at him, a worried frown creasing her brow. “I know you mean well, but you have to trust me to find my own way. I was an awkward kid, but never helpless. You have to stop fixing.”
Another knock sounded on the suite door. His gaze shot to the door, his heart sinking into his toes. He released a heavy breath. The news he had to share with Hannah weighed on him.
Chris touched his arm. “Tell me.”
“I made her a promise I’m going to have to break.” He’d have to look Hannah in the face and tell her he had to break a rule. Any other time, obligation would make this decision easy. After all, he and Chris had gone to these fund-raisers every year since they were kids, and every year their father made a large donation. That this year’s was another bachelor auction provided a complication. Given everything he and Hannah had talked about, however, he had a sneaking suspicion this particular rule meant the most to her. “I don’t look forward to telling her I’m going to have to date someone else.”
Chris studied him for a moment, searching something in his face, then hiked her chin and straightened her shoulders. She strode past him with a decisive nod. “Then I’ll do it. I made this mess. I’ll clean it up.”
* * *
Hannah’s stomach did a flip. The silence of the hallway around her did nothing for the frazzled state of her nerves. Insane. She had to be insane for doing this.
She glanced down, recinched the tie of her overcoat for the thousandth time, then looked back at the door and drew a deep breath. Of all the things she’d ever done, this had to be the boldest. The idea and execution had been Maddie’s. Hell, even the tan overcoat belonged to her braver-than-her redheaded best friend.
They’d spent the afternoon in a lingerie store Hannah would never have gone into alone. The kind with the naughty stuff sitting beside the vibrators and dildos. Shoot, if it weren’t for Maddie’s pep talk, she never would have left her apartment this way. She bought her vibrators online. Anonymously. Never in her life had she walked the streets of downtown Seattle in a garter belt, stockings, and fuck-me-red stilettos.
And little else.
When she’d left her apartment, she’d floated on top of the world. She had to hand it to Maddie. She felt sexy as hell, something that didn’t happen often, and the thought of Cade’s reaction had her simmering on a low boil.
Standing here, staring at his hotel room door, however, the luscious warmth that had settled low in her belly when she left her apartment had faded to a cold chill. What if he hated it?
Memories filled her thoughts. A young man’s cruel laughter rang in her head. “Attracted to you? Oh, that’s rich.”
Maddie’s words to her a half hour ago followed on the heels of the old, painful memory. “Would you stop worrying? You look phenomenal. No man in his right mind would turn you down, and you know damn well he thinks you’re sexy. Walk tall, girlfriend, because you are smokin’.”
Hannah drew a deep breath for courage, drew her shoulders back, and knocked on the door again.
“I’ll get it. I created this mess. I’ll clean it up.”
The soft, feminine voice coming from within the room drew Hannah up short.
“Uh-uh. You open that door, and she’s going to flip.”
She recognized Cade’s voice. The feminine voice, however, caught her in the chest. Hannah froze. Panic clawed its way through her, setting her heart pounding in immediate denial of the thoughts flying through her mind. Namely, who on earth was the woman in Cade’s room?
No. Cade wouldn’t do that to her. Surely he had a logical explanation.
Or so she told herself. One too many excuses from Dane echoed through her mind. So, too, did his speech the last time she saw him, when he confessed he’d been seeing someone else for more than a few months. Her mind filled with every excuse every guy looking to back out of a date had ever fed her. All her fears collapsed on top of her. How much did she know about Cade, really? She’d taken him at face value, assuming he told her the truth. What if he hadn’t? Okay, so they’d agreed it would be just sex, but she hadn’t agreed to be another someone’s joke…
The door finally opened to reveal a stunning brunette. She stood several inches over Hannah’s meager five foot three, with long dark hair falling in lush waves past her shoulders. She also had a perfect figure, no doubt a puny size six. Her slender legs went clear up to her ears, and her breasts were well more than a handful. Hannah wanted to shrink back. Whatever her relationship to Cade, this woman was everything Hannah yearned to be.
Cade moved up the hallway behind the woman, his strides long and determined, panic in his eyes.
Fear clogged her throat. Denial rang in her mind. Hannah looked between the two of them, waiting for someone to let her off the hook, for Cade to tell her she had it wrong, that it wasn’t what it looked like. She took a step back, confusion waging war with the past, but Cade’s hand shot out, catching her wrist and stopping her retreat. His eyes pleaded with her.
“No, no, no. Don’t you dare think it. I would never do that to you.” He turned his head, brow furrowed, and nudged the woman beside him with an elbow. “Go ahead, Miss ‘I’ll clean up this mess.’ Introduce yourself. You’re getting me in serious hot water. You need to learn to call first and stop barging in.”
The woman turned her head, glaring back at him. “How was I supposed to know you’d have a girl in your room?”
Cade rolled his eyes. “Will you introduce yourself already?”
The woman turned back to Hannah and smiled again, this one friendly and apologetic.
“I’m so sorry to intrude on your date. If my brother here”—the woman shot an irritated glance in Cade’s direction—“had told me he had a girlfriend, I might have known to call before coming over. Caden tends to isolate, and I thought…”
The woman continued to chatter, but Hannah’s mind stopped listening. Two words lodged themselves in her brain and stuck there: girlfriend and brother. Understanding began to dawn as Hannah took a moment to look over the woman across from her. She and Cade had the same black hair, the same mossy-green eyes set deep in the face, even the same wide mouth. The woman stood several inches shorter than him, of course, tall and slender to his broad and brawny, and her jaw had a more feminine curve to it, but the resemblance was there.
Hannah blew out her held breath, her shoulders slumping. “Oh my God. You’re his sister.”
Cade released her wrist. The tension radiating off him drained. “Hannah, this is Christina. Chris, Hannah Miller.”
Christina extended a perfectly manicured hand, done in a neat French ma
nicure. “Pleased to meet you.”
Hannah forced a polite smile, praying it didn’t look as uncomfortable as she felt, and took the woman’s hand. “You as well.”
As they shook, Christina’s shrewd gaze took her in from head to toe; then she turned to Cade, braced a hand against his chest, and pushed him inside the room.
“We girls need a minute.” Despite his surprised expression, she closed the door, leaving it unlatched enough to get back inside. Alone in the hallway, Christina’s eyes lit up. She covered her mouth with her hands for a moment, taking Hannah in from head to toe again. Then Christina caught her in a hug so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.
Christina’s voice came as a whisper between them. “I’m sorry. I have to ask. Are you naked under there?”
Hannah’s face heated a thousand degrees. Of all times for her to meet his family, it had to be now? She sighed. “Nearly. It was supposed to be a surprise. I’m so mortified. I’m sorry we had to meet this way.”
“My fault. Caden’s correct. I should have called. But I have to admit I’m so glad I didn’t. It’s wonderful to meet you. You’re exactly what he needs. Since the fiasco that was his fiancée, he’s been isolating himself. Mom and I have been worried. As for your surprise…” Christina pulled back, holding Hannah by the upper arms, and looked her over once and winked. “Caden won’t know what hit him.”
Hannah couldn’t help herself. She bit her lower lip and looked down at herself. “I sure hope so. It was very nerve-wracking walking through downtown this way.”
Christina covered her mouth and giggled behind her hand. “I did something similar once, except I was actually naked. I got caught on the way and had to sit through a meeting I’d forgotten about. I was beside myself. Never date someone you work with. Come on. Let’s go let Caden off the hook. No doubt he’s fuming on the other side of the door, ready to strangle me.”